


Lilies on an ocean wave

by i_claudia



Series: Check/Mate [13]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Age of Sail, Alternate Universe - Historical, Epilogue, Ficlet, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-08
Updated: 2013-05-08
Packaged: 2017-12-10 19:59:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/789585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_claudia/pseuds/i_claudia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a house on a hill overlooking the sea.</p>
<p>(I wrote this long before I'd even finished <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/631183">Heart of Oak</a>. It's so good to finally post it.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lilies on an ocean wave

**Author's Note:**

> A very tiny epilogue for my darling gentlemen, because I wanted to write it for them. It's a conclusion to their story, though...I think...perhaps not the only one. And it's especially for you, dashing companions: for everyone who fell as far as I did, for everyone who encouraged this ~~madness~~ series. These words are for everyone who has read and loved this incarnation of our boys, whether from yesterday or from the very beginning: you all own a share in this. Thanks to all of you for reading, and all—but I mean _all_ —of my hearts. ♥
> 
> Title lifted from a traditional funeral poem for sailors.

There is a house on a hill overlooking the sea: a simple, rambling place sheltered by breadfruit trees and a tangled riot of pink flowers. Honeysuckle grows there and hangs heavy on the breeze of an evening, and often with it floats the gentle strains of an étude or a nocturne, bowed by a proficient hand. It is a snug house, though humble, and it keeps out the sweeping rains admirably when storms lash the island. 

Two men live there, forever mending the low wall around the modest garden and trading for their necessities with the natives, who, after an initial fierce curiosity, have long since left them in peace. One of the men is slighter, marked by a difficult life, his eyes brilliant but shadowed beneath his brow. He walks with difficulty; more often he can be found sitting with his legs wrapped in a blanket as he mends nets, looking out to sea, as if by the power of his gaze alone he might follow where it stretches beyond the horizon. On sunny days he makes his slow way down with the help of a sturdy stick to the shore, to greet the fishers as they come in at evening and exchange a few brief, halting words. His eye, when he regards the small boats, is professional; he trades the nets and his knowledge of knots for a few fish, still fresh and flopping. 

His companion is never far from him, placing a steadying hand on his elbow over the roughest terrain and conversing more easily with the fishermen in their tongue. They keep to themselves, these gentlemen; not as if they have no faith in their fellow man, but as if they very simply have no need of further companionship, as if all the wide world might disappear and still they would remain—together—unperturbed. They are neither of them young, and yet they show no true signs of age; except, perhaps, a few greying hairs and their habit of sitting beneath the wide porch of their cosy home after the evening meal, both of them content simply to enjoy the salt breeze and the quiet conclusion of the day as seabirds dip and call and find their nests.

Lamplight spills from the windows of the house as the sun sets across the water and bats dart past them to replace the swooping birds. Still they sit, perhaps one of them with a sea-stained violin, the other with a pipe held gently between his fingers. Slowly, slowly, as the night draws close around them, the languid waves muffled by darkness, they lean together, sometimes conversing quietly in their own language, often saying nothing at all, their only words expressed in the tangle of their fingers where their hands are clasped together. They sit until the moon appears and dusts the verdant leaves with silver, and then they rise together, their shoulders and their elbows brushing in warm familiarity, and shut the door behind them against the night.

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a wild ride, my darlings. Thank you all for coming along with me. ♥
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _There are no flowers on a sailor's grave,_  
>  _No lilies on an ocean wave._  
>  _The only tribute is the seagull's sweep_  
>  _And the tear on a loved one's cheek._


End file.
